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Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by WalterBright on Sunday April 14, 2019 @09:36PM (#19662709)
The Allies made short work of the German bunkers during D-Day.
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by sbzodnsbd on Sunday April 14, 2019 @10:14PM (#19662811)
First they were made mostly to defend against the Yugoslavians and the Greeks.

Also, the vast majority of them are the size of a small igloo barely big enough for two, with foot thick reinforced concrete - and they’re everywhere in an onion like structure.

The idea then is that the infantry man retreats to the next layer (some 100 yards or less).

Sure an aircraft an destroy anyone of them. But there are more bunkers than any Air Force can blow up.

Meanwhile the invader has hundreds of kilometers of layers of bunkers to walk through.

Most of the igloos are for rifle men. Every third igloo is open in the back - that’s the RPG guy for the tanks.

Those big bunkers in the photos are quite rare.

Finally, the “commissioning” of the igloo bunker was done by having their designer sit in one of them while the artillary hit it - they’re tough little things.

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by willvarfar on Monday April 15, 2019 @02:50AM (#19663590)
Yeah I was surprised how the pictures show bunkers in hillsides, their gleaming concrete dome exposed and very visible.

It would be such a little thing to dump the earth they excavated when building the bunker back on top of the thing and spread it around so grass grew etc, hiding the damn thing.

Imagine being a soldier sat in one. It would give the feeling of 'please shoot at me!' rather than the feeling of security, surely.

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by WalterBright on Monday April 15, 2019 @03:55AM (#19663821)
Even when the bombs don't penetrate the concrete, the shock waves are disabling to the inhabitants. Since the bunker is in a fixed position, once the artillery is zeroed in on it, you just pound it till it breaks, and there's nothing the inhabitants can do about it. Ground attack airplanes firing at the gun ports, enveloping the bunker with napalm, phosphor bombs, etc., all are effective and fairly cheap to do.

For accounts of this by survivors,

"D Day Through German Eyes" by Eckhertz

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by acqq on Monday April 15, 2019 @04:56AM (#19664042)
Also, already in WW II the "normal" bomb shelters (also mentioned in the article) weren't effective protection to the methods proudly used by the British and US war planners:

https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/833665-clinical

"Increased ambient environmental temperature from burning napalm has been known to cause the deaths of individuals in raid shelters as a result of radiant heat and dehydration. This was a frequent cause of death in the bombing raids carried out over Hamburg, Germany, during World War II."

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by willvarfar on Monday April 15, 2019 @05:23AM (#19664136)
Recently Swedish forest fires swept across a military range. Because of fear of unexploded ordinance, the fire fighters couldn't pursue it.

But the air force dropped a very small conventional bomb, sucked all the oxygen out of the air, and put out the fire.

It was in the news a bit. A quick google finds https://www.thelocal.se/20180725/watch-swedish-fighter-jets-...

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by asjo on Monday April 15, 2019 @06:21AM (#19664310)
Didn't they drop the idea again, because it didn't really work that well?
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by willvarfar on Monday April 15, 2019 @04:52AM (#19664021)
My point about camouflaging it by having a nice turf over it was to avoid its position being fixed in the first place.
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by bluGill on Monday April 15, 2019 @09:37AM (#19665181)
What is the point? either you construct it in secret and hope the secret is safe (no spys!), or you construct it in public so the enemy already knows where it is. In the first place you hope the enemy doesn't know. In the second place you know the enemy already knows so you mitigate that by either having so many that the enemy cannot deal with them all, and/or you mitigate by making the strong enough to withstand an attack.
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by stoolpigeon on Monday April 15, 2019 @05:03AM (#19664064)
These didn't have anything rational about them. They are literally everywhere- seemingly randomly placed in the middle of farm fields, etc. and they kept people busy and were a response to the ever present "threat" of the US and/or USSRs ever imminent attack. So camouflage didn't matter.
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by tombrossman on Monday April 15, 2019 @08:06AM (#19664709)
> It would be such a little thing to dump the earth they excavated when building the bunker back on top of the thing and spread it around so grass grew etc, hiding the damn thing.

Easier said than done, and I don't think camouflaging them was ever a priority. Even today, you can see the excavated material spilling down the hill in front of large bunkers 70+ years later, which makes them fairly easy to locate: https://www.cios.org.je/assets/images/other/noirmont-headlan... (this location is also easy to spot in wartime RAF reconnaissance images that I've seen)

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by benj111 on Monday April 15, 2019 @01:49AM (#19663344)
Not all bunkers, the submarine pens were quite a challenge.

"Its roof (3.40 to 7.0 metres (11.15 to 22.97 ft) of steel-reinforced concrete)"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keroman_Submarine_Base

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by jacobush on Monday April 15, 2019 @03:28AM (#19663721)
You weren't kidding. 'Tis was easier to flatten the bordering city and all the roads rather than bombing the submarine pens!
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by dsfyu404ed on Monday April 15, 2019 @08:58AM (#19664945)
Even after the war they couldn't demolish it by blasting because even targeted explosions would have been enough to seriously harm everything around it.

"Because it seemed impossible to destroy Valentin by bombing it, the decision was made to destroy it by blasting. This idea was later abandoned because the blasting would have caused severe damage to the nearby villages of Rekum and Farge including the power-station in Farge. In 1960 the bunker was taken over by the German Navy, for use as a storage depot. "[1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_submarine_pens#Post_w...

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by lostlogin on Monday April 15, 2019 @05:45AM (#19664188)
That says more about their accuracy than the bunker strength. The allied bombing was terrible.
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by benj111 on Monday April 15, 2019 @07:34AM (#19664588)
They dropped grand slam (22,000lb) bombs on submarine pens. Some of the hits are detailed on wikipedia, but yeah WW2 bombing wasn't accurate.

"It was the most powerful non-atomic aerial bomb used in combat until 2017"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Slam_(bomb)

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by dsfyu404ed on Monday April 15, 2019 @08:55AM (#19664928)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentin_submarine_pens

"The Lancasters attacking Valentin each carried a single large earthquake bomb – seven carried the 5 ton 'Tallboy', thirteen carried the 10 ton 'Grand Slam'. Two 'Grand Slam's hit the target and penetrated about half-way through the 15-foot (4.6 m) thick ferrous concrete roof before exploding. The explosions blew large holes in the remaining thickness of the roof and brought down around 1,000 tons of debris into the chamber below.[8] Workers who were inside the bunker at the time survived, as the bombs did not penetrate the roof before detonating.[8]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U-Boat_Pen_Grand_Slammed....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bremen-Farge,_Royal_Air_F...

Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by jacobush on Monday April 15, 2019 @07:01AM (#19664468)
But with "as many as 500 high-explosive bombs and more than 60,000 incendiary bombs" you'd think they could have hit the bunker a few times?
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by ethbro on Sunday April 14, 2019 @11:15PM (#19662939)
14/15" naval gunfire support will do that.
Re:The Cold War bunkers that cover a country by WalterBright on Monday April 15, 2019 @01:38AM (#19663310)
Phosphor bombs dropped by fighters had a big role in that, too, especially the ones not visible from the ship guns.

A bunker cannot maneuver or adapt under fire, meaning it's very vulnerable to modern warfare techniques. Mostly it just winds up as a trap for the unfortunates in it.